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Against the advice of city legal staff, councillors ordered city legal staff to try to intervene in a gun registry court fight.

City council vote 20-13 on Friday to order the city solicitor to seek leave to intervene in support of the Barbra Schlifer Clinic’s motion for an injunction to stop the destruction of long-gun registry data.

The Toronto legal clinic is fighting in the courts to save the registry the federal Conservatives have already voted to scrap.

Just before the vote, Mayor Rob Ford called any fight to maintain the gun registry “a waste of taxpayers’ money.”

The gun issue came on the floor of council near the end of the third day of the city council meeting and with 12 councillors absent for the vote.

On Thursday, city council met behind closed doors and discussed the issue.

During Friday’s public session, Councillor Pam McConnell successfully moved the city intervene in support of the legal clinic to provide the city’s perspective on why the gun data should not be destroyed.

“I’m suggesting that we should be supporting the move that is being put forward by a renowned city legal clinic,” she told council.

Speaking before the vote, Ford indicated councillors were told by city lawyers that a legal fight would be costly and futile.

“I guess some of the councillors don’t want to take the advice of our solicitor,” Ford said.

“They want to go out and spend half a million dollars on a case that we’re going to lose. That’s what the solicitor was telling us, up to half a million dollars. You don’t get into a fight that you know you aren’t going to win.

“If we had a chance of winning it, it might be different but we don’t.”

Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam said the city solicitor provided cautions “as every solicitor will do as you move towards legal action.”

“Council, as you know, can take the advice and then determine the appropriate course of action,” she said.

Wong-Tam stressed intervenor status would only give the city a supporting role in the legal injunction.

“We are not going to be filing our own injunction,” she said. “We are playing a supporting role if the courts identify us as having a clear purpose and a reason for being there.”

Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday said Friday’s decision was contrary to advice from the city solicitor.

“When the gun registry was implemented, the City of Toronto had taken a position … and argued it was the federal government’s responsibility to establish this sort of thing,” he said. “Now we’re going to go back and try to argue that we have some control over the matter and clearly the decision has already been made, it was a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court.”

Holyday said the chances of the city changing anything by getting involved were “slim and none.”

“And the chances of us getting into fights with other levels of government over this and having to pay costs are enormous,” he said.